Verge Liberation Movements

Harold,

I don't think the MAlign has anything like OFS' motives in mind with the current campaign to foment rebellions to blame on Manticore. They have no intention of stepping in to solve any problems, they just want OFS and Frontier Fleet tied up and blaming Manticore for the rebellions.

It makes sense in a way; the Verge is still a resource to be tapped. 'Saving' a situation is one of the easiest ways to conquest *cough* *Sevastapol* *cough*. They're watching the Andermani 'fish in troubled waters'; they may not be as exploitive (at first) as OFS, but it is a fast and easy way to grow the Renaissance Factor with minimum effort. Heck, it's basically what Manticore has in Talbot - new, eager markets and a largely willing and cooperative populace.
Adding in the whole 'improve the population' bit is even easier - just administer your first group of genetic fixes along with the prolong treatments. It's for their own good, after all...

And as to the Detweillers, the plan may not have been quite so heartless to start, but I'm not so sure. Anger, hubris, and intellect make a very dangerous combo. There's a reason for the 'mad scientist' stereotype - I've known a couple. And their desire to punish their detractors/rivals/foes is something to be seen. In one case he stopped seeing anyone against him as being a 'real' human; from there he segued into full-on paranoid psychosis. He's on medication for that, now, thank goodness. Still a brilliant research guy - but I still recall the hundred-and-twenty page write-up he did to plan the demise of his rivals.

Anyhow, just my humble opinion.
Dave

kzt wrote:

SWM wrote:It can't really be thousands, because the usual estimate of the number of systems under OFS control is only a couple thousand.

There could be a lot of tiny little movements. Many/most of which will be run by the secret police.

I'm feeling a bit obtuse this morning, kzt... Why would the secret police be runnung resistance movements?

Don

Lazalarlives wrote:Harold,

I don't think the MAlign has anything like OFS' motives in mind with the current campaign to foment rebellions to blame on Manticore. They have no intention of stepping in to solve any problems, they just want OFS and Frontier Fleet tied up and blaming Manticore for the rebellions.

It makes sense in a way; the Verge is still a resource to be tapped. 'Saving' a situation is one of the easiest ways to conquest *cough* *Sevastapol* *cough*. They're watching the Andermani 'fish in troubled waters'; they may not be as exploitive (at first) as OFS, but it is a fast and easy way to grow the Renaissance Factor with minimum effort. Heck, it's basically what Manticore has in Talbot - new, eager markets and a largely willing and cooperative populace.
Adding in the whole 'improve the population' bit is even easier - just administer your first group of genetic fixes along with the prolong treatments. It's for their own good, after all...

And as to the Detweillers, the plan may not have been quite so heartless to start, but I'm not so sure. Anger, hubris, and intellect make a very dangerous combo. There's a reason for the 'mad scientist' stereotype - I've known a couple. And their desire to punish their detractors/rivals/foes is something to be seen. In one case he stopped seeing anyone against him as being a 'real' human; from there he segued into full-on paranoid psychosis. He's on medication for that, now, thank goodness. Still a brilliant research guy - but I still recall the hundred-and-twenty page write-up he did to plan the demise of his rivals.

Anyhow, just my humble opinion.
Dave

Wow.. That sounds like a real life Girl Genius Madboy type.

n7axw wrote:

kzt wrote:There could be a lot of tiny little movements. Many/most of which will be run by the secret police.

I'm feeling a bit obtuse this morning, kzt... Why would the secret police be runnung resistance movements?

Don

To attract the trouble makers, so they know who to arrest.

There is a rumor that I have heard of a secret program by the NYPD during Vietnam. They took young officers immediately out of the police academy, and sent them out to infiltrate the antiwar groups. The job of these officers was to incite the groups into more and more violent actions, so that the police would have a reason to arrest them. The rumor goes on to say that four out of the five most militant antiwar leaders were NYPD.

n7axw wrote:I'm feeling a bit obtuse this morning, kzt... Why would the secret police be runnung resistance movements?
Don

Because "resistance" movements attract people that threaten the regime. And because a resistance movement run by the secret police can maintain a much higher profile than any that are actually being run by people the secret police are hunting. So if you are someone who is looking to rebel and are looking for people who think similarly you will end up hooking up with an operation run by the secret police, where you can be controlled, blackmailed or eliminated as the government chooses. Which the secret police consider a win.

Plus, when it seems appropriate, you can have your pet "resistance" movement create some sort of atrocity that the brave secret police can solve or otherwise exploit. See Putin's blowing up of apartment buildings in Russia so he could start another war in Chechnya. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_apartment_bombings

This is how most totalitarian governments work.

And for a view of how the fake operation works from a guy who used to do this for the DEA, see this (realize that this is a pretty crazy site, but the article is interesting):
http://www.lewrockwell.com/2014/05/davi ... ovocateur/

Oh, and I'm pretty sure these are not limited to just the Verge. Lots of prosperous democratic countries have their bands of crazies.

The Red Brigades, the PIRA, Red Army Fraction (whose most famous terrorist actions were committed by East German commandos), United Red Army, The Weathermen (run by community organizer Barack Obama's friend), Black Liberation Army, Symbionese Liberation Army....

kzt wrote:

n7axw wrote:I'm feeling a bit obtuse this morning, kzt... Why would the secret police be runnung resistance movements?
Don

Because "resistance" movements attract people that threaten the regime. And because a resistance movement run by the secret police can maintain a much higher profile than any that are actually being run by people the secret police are hunting. So if you are someone who is looking to rebel and are looking for people who think similarly you will end up hooking up with an operation run by the secret police, where you can be controlled, blackmailed or eliminated as the government chooses. Which the secret police consider a win.

Plus, when it seems appropriate, you can have your pet "resistance" movement create some sort of atrocity that the brave secret police can solve or otherwise exploit. See Putin's blowing up of apartment buildings in Russia so he could start another war in Chechnya. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_apartment_bombings

This is how most totalitarian governments work.

And for a view of how the fake operation works from a guy who used to do this for the DEA, see this (realize that this is a pretty crazy site, but the article is interesting):
http://www.lewrockwell.com/2014/05/davi ... ovocateur/

In an uncontrolled fashion, it sounds like the "Red Mercury" scare from the 1990s. The Western governments heard rumors of a Soviet nuclear warfare program which ended in a substance called "Red Mercury" which could replace plutonium or be used as a plutonium fabrication shortcut (The details were various and changed over the years) which had gotten into the hands of the Russian Criminal underworld during the Soviet disintegration.

It appeared the research project was "real" and the various Western government security apparatus each started secret programs to infiltrate the Russian/International criminal underworld/weapons trade and obtain the research and "Red Mercury" for themselves. Over the next several years, the Western security forces paid of numerous criminal orginizations to meet the next tier of criminal organizations, and so on in order to get closer to procuring Red Mercury.

In the end, Red Mercury was a Russian program to entrap anybody from the underworld looking to purchase nuclear goods on the black market, and the western groups had been busy inadvertantly paying each other off looking for the Red Mercury - There was no black market nuclear weapons trade, only Western and Russian government groups pretending to be criminals and arms traders, and a few low level criminals guilty of nothing more than passing along rumors and being willing to take a few bucks to make an introduction.

Weird Harold wrote:

Lazalarlives wrote:As to Firebrand's association with the OFS prior to his work for Mesa, I recall his mental note about why he'd been working with so many 'liberation' fronts over the years. Something about being able to identify the malcontents' leadership when OFS made their move.

The Alignment is following this pattern - using the various fronts to foment unrest so they can step in and solve the problem. It helps even more when you know exactly what weapons are on planet and who to grab in the first go-round to track their locations.

I don't think the MAlign has anything like OFS' motives in mind with the current campaign to foment rebellions to blame on Manticore. They have no intention of stepping in to solve any problems, they just want OFS and Frontier Fleet tied up and blaming Manticore for the rebellions.

Their aim with regard to Manticore is not to spread the RMN thin trying to redeem "manticore's word" but to undermine their credibility with Successor States. Manticore isn't supposed to find out about any of the rebellions until well after they are crushed and "evidence" of Manticore's promised support is uncovered.

Lazalarlives wrote:Detweiller may have been a genius in biology, but I think he skipped too many history classes. Either that, or he's one of those people who believe 'The reason those other people failed to create the ideal <whatever> state is because they just weren't as smart as I am...'

I assume you mean Leonard Detweiler here?

The same could be said of his clones and most of the Mesan alpha lines; the core of the onion, so to speak, but Leonard wasn't quite as megalomaniacal as you suggest. His original plan was probably not as heartless and ambitious as Albrecht & Sons and the long-range planning committee have turned it into.

Still, the general concept of "human perfection through genetic engineering" is one of those "only I have the vision" kinds of conceits that inevitability leads people to try forcing their vision on everyone else.

I'm pretty sure I've said this before, but just to give it another whack. The current Detweillers are not clones of Leonard Detweiller. In fact, the "boys" are clones of Albrecht only because the onion believed Der Tag was coming pretty darn soon and he was going to need several really capable deputies to deal with it. Right up to his generation, each Detweiller had seen an effort to improve upon the previous generation's Detweiller.

One might argue that any human produced ex-utero is a "clone," and in that sense quite a few of the Detweillers have been clones over the years. I am using the "not a clone" terminology here to maker clear that no one had attempted a "copy machine" version of The Leader in previous generations.

And, for what it's worth, I don't recall ever saying the Leonard was part of the Detweillier Plan, per se, at all. I don't remember saying that he wasn't, either, you understand, but I doubt I ever said either one of them because I deliberately don't want the reader to know yet one way or the other.

RFC,
My apologies for putting my foot in it re: Leonard Detweiller's influence on the plan. I guess I read too much into the 'mad scientist' version of Detweiller from the Beowulf point of view.
I know Albrecht and the committee were needing solid leadership for the next generation, but does the ascent of the clones mean that the Alignment has moved to a post-random reproduction plan? And if so, how many 'kids' are unknowingly clones of one parent or even a different relative?
And just of curiousity, how much of the Onion's 'plan' has suffered drift like one of your other series' 'grand plan' has gone terribly awry? (If I may be so bold to ask?)

Thank you for taking time to help get us on the right track (or in this case, off a track that may or may not be going the right direction!)

Dave

I believe I recall a passage that mentioned -very briefly and in passing- that there were other operations like Firebrands going on in other areas of the Verge.

That would fit with the Detweiler type plans as it would ultimately set "liberation movements" into motion all around the frontiers which both the local systems and OFS/FF would be forced to deal with. For OFS that means sending in passification troops to clean up after FF beats the crap out of the planets (and other parts of systems as needed)

All of that will just inflame various groups within and without the SL. It will also strain the logistics of FF (which is the actual experienced part of the SLN for dealing with this sort of stuff) and spread them wide to cover all these fires. It will also start eating away both at the troop/materials strength and put them away from their bases.

From the Alignment's standpoint the best results would be massive casualties on the sides of 1) the local dictator/tyrant/etc, 2) heavy losses to the OFS troops and 3) breakdown of smooth operations and reactions of FF. This would be just great for the Alignment if many of the revolts transition into long term low to medium civil and separatists conflicts that smolder and flare for YEARS.

Very shortly a lot of powers (systems in the SL and elsewhere) are going to try and pull out of supporting what are dirty and messy little wars that only drain resources. The Alignment really doesn't care who may eventually "win" in any given system as what they want is places ripe for their agents such as the RF to eventually step in to bring peace and order--on the lines of Alignment plans.